Ohio Valley Outdoors Magazine

Three minute mineral sites

By Tony Seals

Nobody in the outdoor community seems to be able to agree on whether or not adding mineral sites to your property is of much benefit to the quality of your deer herd. Since incorporating these sites on my hunting property more than three years ago, I have found one variable to hold true each season though; Whitetails go absolutely bonkers for the stuff, especially throughout the fawning and antler growing periods during the spring and summer months.

If my 20-plus years of chasing whitetails around with camera, bow and gun have taught me anything, it’s that deer have incredible survival instincts. These instincts not only help them to evade predators, they also influence the selection of available foods that are most nutritionally beneficial to themselves and their offspring. With this in mind, I can’t imagine that a whitetail would spend so much time at these mineral sites if their bodies did not have a need for the extra nutrients. Here is a simple system that you can use to add mineral sites to your favorite hunting area in a matter of minutes.
To begin with, a general rule of thumb to use when deciding how many sites to add is one site for every 40-50 acres. I also try to place the sites well away from neighboring property lines. The incredible drawing power of these sites will keep deer visiting the property well into the early bow season. Neighboring hunters are sure to exploit the increased deer traffic produced by your work if the sites are not centrally located (It should also be noted that hunting over a mineral site is considered baiting by many states and is illegal). Loamy, well drained soils make better sites than extremely rocky soils. Deer love to paw at and eat the mineral rich soil surrounding the site as the minerals begin to leach into the ground.

When it comes to selecting which brand of minerals to use, there are tons of them on the market. I found that several of the popular “mineral mixes” consisted mainly of salt. Now, deer love salt and need it in their diet, but why pay 10 times what it is worth just because there is a picture of a deer on the package. I have experimented with making my own for the last couple of years to be sure of the actual mineral content, but have found it to be fairly time consuming and expensive due to the constant recharging of the sites as the granular mixes wash away or become diluted to the point where they begin to lose there appeal.

But, this spring, after talking to the reps from Trophy Rock during Ohio’s annual Deer and Turkey Expo in Columbus, I decided to give their product a try. The all-natural chunks of salt, mined from Central Utah, are heavily laced with most of the vitamins and minerals that whitetails need and are a no-brainer when it comes to effectiveness, cost and ease of use. The deer are tearing these sites to pieces and trail-cam photos confirm that visits take place at all hours of the day and night. To make a new site, I first remove the plastic covering and place the “Rock” into my backpack. After hiking into the chosen area, I simply remove the “Rock” from my pack, clear a three feet diameter circle of leaf litter and debris with my foot and place the mineral chunk onto the bare earth in the middle of the circle. That’s it! In less than three minutes from the time you reach the location, you can have the mineral site, which can last for more than a year, complete and ready for use by the deer in your area.

This is not meant to be an advertisement for Trophy Rock and I receive nothing for writing about it. But, when I find a product that works for me, I like to pass it on. I have seen only positives since adding what I consider the equivalent of “Flintstone vitamins for deer” to my hunting areas. Even though the debate over how much they actually help the deer herd may never be resolved, the fact that deer crave these minerals so strongly is good enough for me. It’s not too late to get started. Take a few minutes out of your day to establish a mineral site or two on your favorite hunting property. Trust me, you won’t regret it.
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Tony Seals, of Lexington, Ohio, is a veteran whitetail hunter with much experience in scouting and food plots. He is a member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America and Outdoor Writers of Ohio. Seals can be reached at whitetailwriter@earthlink.net.